Greenline: Chechnya 1996

June 1996 Gamefix issue #8 on the then and still is current event in Chechyna. The game has four scenarios which range from the historical, to Chechan first strikes and a larger Russian Civil War. In addition, a random events chart covers everything from Chechan "terrorism" to Russian anti-war protests and UN ceasefires.

The game ends either in a UN ceasefire, on turn 10 or 15. Victory is decided on the basis of accumulated political points which are gathered by each side depending on game actions. In addition, the Russian gains big points for holding Grozny and surrounding towns and oil fields. The Russian can hardly be denied a military victory. In other words, the Russian has enough troops to literally carpet Chechyna, but the political cost of such an approach would lose him the game.

In true Joe Miranda fashion, the political point chart is the heart of the game. Both players must consider their strengths and weaknesses.

The Russians costs political points to have air, air assaults, armor, air supply, airmobile, security, mech, heli, special ops, and propaganda units activated. They can be caught OOS and crushed by a Rebel counterattack if the Russians went too far forward from the supply base. The Rebels, on the other hand, are mostly infantry and militia but have patriots (foreign volunteers).

Random events and random rebel reinforcements (with militia popping up all over the place) made every game different. Another feature is the various special combat results tables for probe and assault attack, and psych warfare table (conducted by special ops, propaganda and patriot units)